Convenience Store Woman

114 printed pages

👍12

🚀5

🎯4

The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

This novel is a light, comical way to reflect how our capitalist society works. If you don't have any use for society your disposable. The story is funny, witty, and the writing amazing. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year.

After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.

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rrecijphas quoted4 months ago

being a married member of society. Everyone will assume you’re a sexually active, respectable human being. That’s the image of you that pleases them most.

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chastityhas quoted6 months ago

When morning comes, once again I’m a convenience store worker, a cog in society. This is the only way I can be a normal person.

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